Israelis dig out of the snow and begin to return to routine • School resumes in Jerusalem and the north • Because of ongoing power outages and dangerous roads, helicopters drop generators in Judea and Samaria.

A resident of the Druze village of Beit Jann in the Upper Galilee digs his car out of the snow on Monday

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Photo credit: AFP

Slowly but surely, Israel is recovering from the severe storm, clearing blocked roads and restoring power to homes. School resumed Tuesday in some areas hardest hit by the storm.

The Jerusalem municipality announced Monday that school would resume on Tuesday from 10 a.m. in schools where physical and safety conditions permit. The municipality asked parents to exercise common sense and stay home if it was not possible to arrive safely at school or nursery school.

The town of Mevaseret Zion decided there would be no school on Tuesday because there were too many fallen trees and branches on the sidewalks, endangering the safety of parents and children. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem also announced that there would be no classes due to icy roads and sidewalks.

The Binyamin Regional Council decided that there would be no school Tuesday in the communities of Ateret, Eli, Shvut Rahel, Shilo and at the Ofra religious girls' high school.

In the settlements of Gush Etzion, all elementary schools and girls' high schools were closed with the exception of the school in Tekoa, which operated normally.

School also resumed in Safed, in northern Israel, and in the northern Golan Heights.

The electricity situation, too, is gradually improving. As of Monday night, 3,250 households throughout the country still lack electricity. Of these, about 1,250 are in Jerusalem.

In the north, most of the power outages have been fixed, with the exception of some in the village of Dovev in the northern Galilee.

In Judea and Samaria, on the other hand, many communities remain without electricity. The Israel Air Force has taken the dramatic step of deploying Yasur (CH-53 Sea Stallion) helicopters to drop generators into the settlements of Shilo in Binyamin and Itamar in Samaria. The roads leading to these settlements are still precarious.

"Hundreds of workers of the Israel Electric Corporation are working overtime," CEO Eli Glickman said on Monday. "Today all the communities in the State of Israel will be connected to the electricity grid."

Meanwhile, a storm continues to rage through the Knesset over government failings during the inclement weather.

On Monday, opposition parties unanimously proposed launching a parliamentary investigation committee to examine how various government ministries and other bodies functioned during the storm.

"It is the Knesset's job to oversee the executive branch," said Opposition Chairman MK Isaac Herzog (Labor). "Therefore, we demand an investigation into the functioning of the system and its conduct during the storm."

The institutions whose conduct will be investigated by the committee include the Defense Ministry, Public Security Ministry, Israel Electric Corporation, Magen David Adom, Fire and Rescue Services and Homefront Command.

Knesset activity over the storm began on Tuesday. The Internal Affairs and Environment Committee and the Subcommittee for Homefront Preparedness began a series of discussions on the failings exposed over the weekend in the functioning of these organizations.

"Israel cannot allow people to be disconnected from electricity for long periods in bitter cold," said MK Miri Regev (Likud-Beytenu), chairwoman of the Internal Affairs Committee. "We must learn lessons to prevent what happened in Jerusalem and in the north from happening again."

The chairman of the Homefront Preparedness Subcommittee, Eli Yishai (Shas), said: "The government did not anticipate the size of the storm, its proportions or consequences. It is incumbent upon them to be prepared for the vagaries of nature."

In addition, the Economic Affairs Committee, headed by Avishai Braverman, is expected to hold a first hearing today on the Electric Corporation's preparedness and functioning in the storm. Taking part in the hearing will be senior executives, including the company's director, Maj. Gen. (ret.) Yiftah Ron-Tal.